Ifigenia gave herself to the sacrificial sword so the Greeks could their war against Troy. Saved by Artemis, she becomes the priestess for the city of Tauris. Now in charge, Ifigenia faces an impossible choices: follow the law and slay her unfortunate brother, Oreste, or summon everything she has to save her only kin.

This new work by theatre-maker Tan Shou Chen and music director Ng Tian Hui responds to George Frideric Handel’s opera Oreste. In Handel’s treatment, Ifigenia is portrayed as a supporting character in Oreste’s journey. Against the backdrop of Euripedes’ Ifigenia Among the Taurines, this staging turns the spotlight to this enigmatic woman, using Handel’s music to tell the story of Oreste according to Ifigenia, with the opera dramatising the relationship between these two central figures.

(Photo by Samuel Woo)